Lens-Artists PC: London calling

I choose a place that many of you know and show it through my first digital camera’s eye as seen in 2010 because a Londoner said it was always interesting to see your home city through the eyes of a visitor.

It was Sarah, and she picked some extraordinary architecture from North Korea for this week’s Tina’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, who said this so here is her city through my eyes.

The photos are not originals – those are mysteriously missing – but rather have been uploaded and now downloaded from my Google account and for this reason are really low in quality. Still good enough to be posted, I do hope. Plus there are more than usual.

It’s 2010 and I’m in London for the third – and so far last – time. There are two main reasons for my visit, No. 2 much more than No. 1:

Know your enemy.

• Soccer game England : Slovenia is played at the World Cup in South Africa just then. We watch the game in a “Slovenian” pub in London amid some publicity. The beer runs out by half time. Result 1:0.
• Pearl Jam gig in Hyde Park. My friend Darja from Slovenia, who lives an hour by train from London and works there, treats me to a ticket for my 40th birthday and we go together. The second part of my trip is spent in her home with a visit to Lulworth Cove and Monkey World in Dorset. (Sarah: Ewan McGregor, the flu and Stonehenge happened during my second visit in 1999.)

Don’t give up. Photo: Darja

But the first four days I stay in the cheapest hotel in London that I could find to book because they were all so expensive. Many stories go with this trip. Let me try and round up some for you like a sheep dog:

• When I arrive in my tiny hotel room from the airport, it’s past 10 p.m. and I’m so tired. I have nothing to drink and suspect that the tap water is not potable (but of course it is!), that’s why I keep heating up water on the little heater and use up all the free teas and coffees.
• The next day father writes to me that the hotel has billed his credit card which I used to book my stay. I alert the man at the desk and he is aghast and in denial. The next day it turns out that the amount is merely held in “captivity”. This says it all about how much I’m used to dealing with credit cards. And Slovenia loses against England so we are not enemies any more and the man relaxes.
• Before I arrive, I research online and note down stuff to do: an architecture exhibition (I visit this one first and it proves priceless since I take down addresses of things that appeal to be visited later); a free theatre performance is booked in advance on top of Greenwich where you pretend together with other audience members and actors that it is war and you are the government (It is hot in that orange shipping container!); a mysterious exhibition that promises fruit that is good for your eyes at the Ophthalmology Office (or similar) (It is horrible, just some plastic fruit under glass. When I ring the bell, they are really surprised to see me there. Internet is not always to be trusted); a collection of songs to be played at funerals of various artists of Yugoslav origin is gathered in a small art centre in a pretty part of London I’d never go otherwise (It makes me cry); and at least three museums (The Surreal House at the Barbican is the best).
• My friend laughs at me for wanting to go to the Bermondsey tube station for some architectural reason and then I find nothing at all there to cheer about. She also laughs because I pronounce it as Bermoooondsey.
• I’m most impressed by the Gherkin and follow it around with my camera. Other locations that the architecture exhibition made me track down include The Circle, The Ark and Minster Court.
• Surprisingly few if any doors are captured. I remember clearly finding Scotland Yard entrance by pure chance and clicking on it, but this photo was not uploaded to my Google account and it appears lost with all the others.

Before I guide you through what remains of my days in London – with the emphasis on architecture – as seen through my first digital camera, a bulky Canon, three news in brief:

• Just when I decided to buy this 18-200 mm Tamron lens for my new old Nikon D5000 to get myself some zoom, amore sends me this link for a Sigma 18-250 mm for 75 Eur more. Tamron vs. Sigma, any experience? (It’s high time. Birds have been pulling faces at me.)
• Måneskin, the last Eurovision Song Contest winners from Italy and amore’s Number One current band (because The Clash are #1 of all times) opened for Rolling Stones two nights ago in Las Vegas. I was so impressed with their cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog that I slammed around the house. I’m considering making a shirt for my dog to wear (not!). I didn’t care for their attire though. (The whole show is available on YouTube.)
• No-look Luka decided yet another game with a crazy three and again against Boston Celtics. I must leave this here:

And now for something completely different: London in one hot week in June 2010.

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  Didn’t enter. Who told me that it was fun?

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  Oh, London town. I miss you.

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  A modern bridge.

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  Clearly I liked street art already but not enough to investigate.

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  I could pass for an England’s supporter but these are the colours of Union brewery, the main sponsor of Team Slovenia. Photo: Darja

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  The Oxo Tower.

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  If this is Bermondsey, it’s pretty!

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  Sometimes that hasn’t quite decided to be a river.

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  The Circle.

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  The Gherkin from a bridge.

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  Tower Bridge, I assume.

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  St. Pancras.

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  Isaac Newton at the British Library. (Left. The gentleman looks upset.)

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  The Ark.

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  Natural History Museum.

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  Natural History Museum too.

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  The Barbican.

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  Greenwich.

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  Right outside our theatre container.

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  Who knows?

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  This must be … hm… Nelson’s Column!

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  Minster Court.

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  Here comes the Gherkin.

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  Can you see it?

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  Everybody was watching South Africa.

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  New vs. old.

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  Near that little art centre. (Camden Arts Centre, I googled it.)

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  You tell me what this is behind me. Photo: Darja

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  Millennium Bridge opposite Tate Modern.

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  Darja and some birches.

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  The Globe?

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  John Cleese bought a square for Michael Palin too with his surname intentionally misspelled.

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  What is behind there, i wonder.

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  No idea, but peculiar.

For Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, hosted by Tina at Travels and Trifles: Interesting architecture

This day in my blogging history

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  2015: Love in Giardino dei Tarocchi

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  2016: Some of the Etruscan tombs in Vetulonia with the view

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  2017: More peeks from Giardino dei Tarocchi with the dragon rider

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  2018: When Norm and I did a Thursday Doors double bill from San Galgano Abbey

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  2018: Norm even lay on the floor to take this photo with my camera

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  2019: When I was guest-hosting Friendly Friday with a whole lot of fruit

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